Aston Origin Microphone | Presonus Studio One

I admit it, I am turning into a microphone geek. Oh dear.

As I get more into recording of acoustic instruments, I am experimenting more with microphones and trying different ones. Some have not worked out, but some have really surprised me.

Aston Origin

I’ve noted before that I recommend the Aston Origin microphone, but a recommendation without audio is perhaps questionable. I was watching one of the many YouTube broadcasts from Canadian guitarist JP Cormier and he was saying how much he liked the Aston and I had to agree that what I heard through the Homepods connected to my AppleTV was pretty darn nice.

I bought one, and then life got in the way and I only used it a bit before getting pulled into other things. Then I had an idea.

Into the Muck

Ideas are potentially dangerous and in my case, always costly. My older Macbook Air cannot run the current or even the last two Apple operating systems. It is one of those sealed <grrr> units where I cannot add memory and it was not doing the job for me. I had this Lenovo P70 with lots of memory, CPU and storage and while it is large and heavy, thought it would be a good place for some local noodling recording in the living room.

I am mostly a Mac shop, and when my Dell XPS 17 (the only Windows machine in production) lost its mind completely and had to be wiped and reset with a fresh version of Windows because it would not talk to my Apollo Solo, the RODEcaster or pretty much anything else, I became, as happens from time to time, annoyed. I don’t hate windows but the range of tools for audio recording on Windows are kind of lame. I have access to Adobe Audition, and it’s ok, but it’s really the audio engine for Premiere Pro videos and in my opinion is less suited to live recording. I had through some purchases access to Ableton Live Lite and to ProTools First. I couldn’t get used to the interface on Ableton Live Lite coming as I do from Logic Pro and LUNA. ProTools First records fine, but is made brain dead regarding plugins, and I did not like it near enough to fork over the cash for the (my opinion) stupidly high ProTools subscription price. Sorry AVID, not this year.

I also found that the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the Lenovo were not really Thunderbolt 3 fully compliant. I connected a Focusrite Solo 3rd gen and that could be seen but I needed a DAW that was easy to use and designed for music. I found a Presonus Faderport 2 on sale and it came with a version of Presonus Studio One. I was looking forward to learning a new DAW like I look forward to a root canal, but after some installation issues (that I blame entirely on Windows 11 and OneDrive) I got Studio One installed and talking to the Focusrite. Sadly it is a single microphone input unit so a guitar microphone and a room microphone simultaneously are not happening. It is however Black Friday weekend as I write this, so I will look to a larger Focusrite unit. I love UA gear but am not impressed by the cheap looking Volt offerings which don’t appear to work with UA plugins at all and cost twice what a Focusrite does, so for my noodling recording it’s going to be Scarlett.

Recording with the Aston to Studio One

Although the Thinkpad is a 17” display, to be blunt, it’s a bit small, so I just wanted to capture song elements into the laptop and use the OneDrive capability to make them available on the Dell which is newer, faster and has a large external display. It also works after starting over fresh. It’s local interface is a UA Apollo Solo and UAD 2 Thunderbolt 3 Satellite, so I have plenty of plugin power if needs be. Since I had to rebuild it, when I did I put Studio One on it as well.

I connected the Aston Origin directly to the Focusrite Solo which is connected to the Lenovo by USB-C. Setting up a new song on Studio One was a piece of cake and once I determined microphone placement and levels, set to recording. The Faderport has nice big buttons and while I could certainly do the job without it, choose not to do so. I just wish its power supply cable was longer.

I recorded several short pieces, playing them back through the M-Audio monitors (AV40) attached to the Focusrite. Sounded pretty good but I found the recording needed more tweaking as I wanted to record the raw audio with no pre or post production. Once I got things where I wanted, it was time to play.

A few hours later, I had the pieces that I wanted to work with and as they had been saved to OneDrive, they were already on the Dell XPS 17 when I went to do the cleanup. I am definitely still at the entry level when it comes to Studio One, but I am farther with it than any of the other Windows alternatives in less than one quarter the time. It also includes a swath of provided plugins and readily uses my UA plugins, Waves plugins and Torpedo cabinet sims. For the sake of fun, I decided for the sample to use only the Presonus plugins.

On the input channel I placed the Presonus Channel Strip and the Multiband Dynamics plugins. I didn’t mess with them much, just a bit of flavour to taste. On the mix bus, I used the Three Band Compressor / Limiter, the Room Reverb and for my own sanity the VU meter plugins. I am either old school or just old, and I like big visible meters.

A little tweaking of the three compressor bands, a change of the reverb to small room with a little less reflectance and a reduced mix and I was quite happy.

I will say that my tweaking has resulted in a reduction of the high end that came naturally with the Aston. I would rather get everything from a microphone and take away, than not have pieces right from the go. The Boucher OM bodied 12 string guitar used for the sample is very neutral, but the 12 string octave overtones are definitely there, and as it is strung with the octave strings above, unlike a Gibson 12, you definitely get a different sound.

I know that the Focusrite preamp is not as rich as the preamps in the Apollo unit, but it did not disappoint, and I had excellent control via the Studio One application. Have a listen to this very short sample to hear the finished tones.

It’s very like what I was hearing in the room, although with less reverb because of no room microphone. The Boucher is Adirondack Spruce over South American Mahogany. It does have a K&K Pure Mini pickup which is superb, but some of the other guitars do not have pickups and I wanted to keep things consistent in my recordings.

Summary

While I did not go out to find yet another DAW, the options for Windows are limited and I am quite pleased with Presonus Studio One. Interestingly, Fender Musical Instrument Corporation FMIC has done a news release saying that they have acquired Presonus which I think is a smart move on their part.

Most important though is the confirmation that the Aston Origin is a superb choice for miking up acoustic guitars. It has a great range, and while a condenser design requiring +48v Phantom Power, it really delivers on the frequency response of an acoustic and particularly well with the harmonic overtones of a 12 string. I highly recommend this microphone.

If you have questions on this or any other related subject, click this link to send your question in. Thanks for reading and until next time, peace.